The House of Fears
by Rien
Summary: Ok, I suck at summaries, but I can promise you this much: music, mystery, love, hate, suspense, action, and laughter, gotta have laughter. may have sex eventually too, but not sure as of yet. I appriciate any suggestions for making my story better, thanx
1. The dream

Disclaimer: I own Viviane, Blanchefleur, and any story line that centers around them. Hogwarts, and of the concepts the wizarding world, including most spells, candies and characters belong to J. K. Rowling  
  
Spoilers: Stuff from all four books will be mentioned at some time or another.  
  
  
  
Prologue  
  
Draco Malfoy slowly opened his eyes to the darkness around him. He wasn't sure where he was, how he got there, or if he was even laying down or not. He couldn't feel anything, not even his own breathing. But instead of panicking, like a normal person might, he was serene.  
  
He remembered laying in bed, smiling as dark thoughts of tormenting Harry Potter and his little "Dream Team" swirled through his imagination, and then all of sudden, he was aware of being in total darkness. It must be a dream he concluded as he stood.  
  
All of a sudden, he found himself surrounded by a soft orange light, like that of a fire. He looked around him and gazed in awe at the tall stone ceiling over his head, held up by gigantic statues of wild beasts with beady carved eyes. The cobblestone under his feet felt like air. He was dressed in the black silk pajamas that he had worn to bed. Shadows danced on the walls around him and as he turned around, he discovered why: a man dressed in dark robes was standing over a cauldron that sat upon a fire. He appeared to be brewing a potion. To the man's right was a woman tied to a rope bed, unconscious and marked with what appeared to be several old wounds, the blood now dry and scabbed.  
  
Draco let out a small gasp at the scene before him. He had known what kinds of things the dark arts entailed, human sacrifice, blood rituals, forbidden curses, death - and he had always smiled at the thought of the power that dark magic world give him one day, for surely he would follow in his father's footsteps and become a master of black magic - but now, seeing the look of madness in the wizard's eyes as he stirred his cauldron, and the helpless weakness of the woman who was apparently his victim, Draco was scared.  
  
He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and he was sure the wizard would look up at him any minute and do something horrible to him, but he did not. Draco realized that he must be invisible; after all, this was a dream. So he did the only thing he knew to do, he watched.  
  
He watched the dark wizard throw in dragons blood in to the mysterious stew, he heard the man begin to chant, though what he was saying, Draco didn't know. The wizard was hissing in parseltongue, a language Draco didn't understand. But whatever the wizard was saying had some effect, for the fire began to grow, and as it did, it sputtered and popped viciously and the cauldron began to smoke. The wizard began to wave his arms about and screamed his words, making Draco cover his ears to block out the terrible hissing chant. Then the wizard took a silver goblet from a little table on his left and dipped it in to his smoking cauldron, now charged with magic. The liquid in the goblet smoked and as some of it spilled red over the brim of the cup. The wizard smiled evilly and, gesturing to his tied up victim, gave a toast.  
  
"To the Dragon" he said in English. Then he drank the potion down thirstily, not even pausing to breath until the goblet was finished off. Draco watched in horror as the wizard threw the goblet down violently, and made his towards the tied up woman.  
  
"My dear, the Lord is falling, and when he does, we shall rise with the Dragon to do our bidding." He said softly caressing the woman's cold cheek. The woman continued to lie still, not being aware in the slightest of what was going on around her.  
  
Draco turned away as the wizard took off his robes and climbed a top the woman, knowing what he was about to do.  
  
"Good God!" Draco yelled as he clutched the frantic heart in his chest as a girl appeared in front of him. Just what kind of freaky dream is this? He thought frantically.  
  
The girl was his age. Her face was a bit round, and she looked to be of average height for a fifteen-year-old girl. He couldn't tell what the rest of her body looked like, for she clothed in heavy silver robes. She had wavy brown hair and the clearest blue eyes he had ever cared to notice. They seemed to bore in to him, and he found himself fixated by them as she opened her mouth to speak.  
  
"The dragon," she whispered as though she had trouble speaking. Draco noticed that her forehead gleamed with sweat in the fire light. She seemed to gasp for every breath.  
  
"The dragon, the dragon will sacrifice"  
  
"What do you mean? What is this dragon?" Draco asked, but his words seemed muddy, he didn't know if the girl would understand him.  
  
"Love is sacrifice. The dragon, will sacrifice" she said, and before he could ask another question, the girls eyes began to drip blood and her skin turned coal black. Draco opened his mouth to scream, but he couldn't hear his own sounds until he woke up in the solitude of his large dark bedroom.  
  
He sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, his silk pajamas sticking to his hot skin. What the hell was that? His thoughts screamed. There had been a girl, a beautiful girl. She said something important, Draco tried to grasp it, but the dream was fading away, like wisps of smoke disappearing in to the night sky. He remembered the girl but what did she say? Something about a dragon, something about -  
  
***  
  
"Sacrifice!" the girl screamed from her bed. Normally, she was curvy and sparkling with life, but now, after two weeks of the worst flu Jack Brady had ever seen in all his days at the Low Wood Street Orphanage, she seemed smaller, thinner, and frailer. He used to jump at the girl's feverish screams, but by now he was accustomed to it. Everybody was.  
  
The girl, Viviane, had been turning and muttering in her sleep for days now, ridiculous things about dragons and sacrifice and darkness. Jack had quite a time trying to convince the small children that their friend was all right, just suffering from a fever. The fact that Molly Harper, one of the older and certainly the most mischievous of the orphans, had managed to sneak in a copy of The Exorcist and had held a midnight screening of the horror film didn't help matters. Now everybody thought Viviane, their favorite tutor and best friend, was possessed a demon.  
  
Jack sighed as he spotted three small girls crouched by the door way of the infirmary, shaking in their night gowns, fearing for their friend's life. He could just kill Molly sometimes. She was always telling the kids stories about haunted attics and poltergeists and all sorts of other evil things that didn't really exist. But of course, she never told the children that. It seemed as if it was her goal in life to try to scare the kids to death.  
  
But Jack knew that Viviane suffered from no ghosts, just a fever and smiled at the children reassuringly.  
  
"She'll be OK in the morning, now get on to bed. You don't want Mrs. Smith to catch you out of your room do you?" he asked.  
  
The girls shook their heads, and smiling tentatively at his reassuring words, scuttled back to their room down the hall. Jack looked back at the tossing form of his best friend.  
  
She continued to moan and mutter, but Jack only caught certain words every now and then, words like "dragon" and "darkness."  
  
Then, all of a sudden, the Viviane sat straight up in bed, screaming "Never!" so loudly, Jack was afraid she would wake up the whole orphanage. At that instant, he heard a loud crack from behind him. He glanced frantically at the bathroom that he heard the sound coming from. Even in the darkness, he could see that the mirror above the sink was broken. Now one was in there. Jack glanced toward his best friend now laying back down, still unconscious, still trapped in a horrible dream. What had just happened? He wondered. There was no way to explain the mirror breaking, unless - but no, Viviane could have done that, he reasoned, people don't have that sort of power! But if she didn't break the mirror, then what did?  
  
Jack bent close to Viviane's face and whispered in her ear.  
  
"Please wake up, please be all right." He then kissed her forehead and continued to gaze at her.  
  
He didn't notice the snowy white cat perched outside the window. He didn't notice as the cat meowed in a strange rhythmic way, nor did he link it to the sudden sleepiness that he felt consume him. He dropped off to sleep instantly, and never heard the window open.  
  
No one in the quiet orphanage saw the cat's hair melt away to skin and its body lengthen to turn in to that of a grown human woman. Now one saw the woman pull out a gnarled wand made of wood. No one heard the woman chant in a strange language that only people brought up with magic could understand. No one saw how Viviane broke in to a cleansing sweat and ceased to toss and turn in her sick bed. No one saw Viviane smile as the nightmare she was trapped in gave way to a more pleasant dream.  
  
In the morning, Viviane would be better, and her fever would be gone. But no one would ever think to link it to the strange night visitor that no one saw. 


	2. The Right Time

Albus Dumbledore looked at the row of Ministry officials sitting across from him, starring at him harshly as though they regarded him with little respect. It was no matter to him however. It never was. There were always more important things to think about then what other people thought of him.  
  
Professor McGonagall, who sat next to him, ever his faithful companion in these matters with the aloof ministry cleared her throat.  
  
"We understand your concerns, but we feel that the girl will be safer inside the walls of Hogwarts than out." she said authoritatively. After all, she had taught some of the people who now sat across from her, attempting to order her around without out having the faintest clue as to the consequences of their decisions. Didn't they realize that the fate of the world was at stake?  
  
"Patience Minerva, we'll make them see." She heard Albus' voice echo in her head. She glanced at the old wizard whose eyes twinkled back at her. He said nothing out loud.  
  
"The mystic soul is a powerful one and yes she could prove to be dangerous, if taken under the wrong influences, but if she were to go to Hogwarts - "  
  
"And learn the magic necessary to kill us all!? I think Not Professor!" The minister of magic shouted. Professor McGonagall ignored his out burst and continued.  
  
"She would learn how to defend herself against the dark arts, not embrace them. It is of course after years of surveillance that we have become confident that the girl would not willingly follow the black arts if given the chance. She is a good kid, she has morals, and a loving family."  
  
"It would be better to keep her in the muggle world, where she is safe.' Another official piped up. "After all, there are rumors - " Bit this time, Professor Dumbledore interrupted calmly.  
  
"if the rumors are true and that man is looking for the mystic soul, then it is essential that she be under our protection. He is powerful, and in the muggle world, there would be nothing to stand between them if he found her. Ignorance is the rot of all evil gentleman, and if we keep this girl ignorant, than what we fear will most surely come to pass. If we teach her magic, she stands a chance, and we could gain a very valuable ally. Just look at Harry Potter. He was tempted with the dark arts and resisted. He holds immense powers, just like this girl. I can not fathom her acting any differently then he in a time of crisis." Dumbledore said. The officals were silent for a moment, all exchanging glances, as if asking each other whether it was safe to trust this headmaster. In the end, they agreed with him.  
  
"All right, let her go to Hogwarts, but if anything happens Dumbledore, you will be out of a job!" the minister said huffily as he got up from his seat and made a hasty exit. His underlings shortly followed suit, none of them giving any look at at Mcgonagall or Dumbledore that was remotely friendly.  
  
"I suppose they till don't trust you, even though you wound up being right about Voldemort. It's broken pride is all. They can't handle being wrong." McGonagall said.  
  
"Let them feel what they must. I have a message to give to my next assistant. She is to take a permanent post by the mystic. I think our girl will need a friend while entering the world of witchcraft and wizardry." Dumbledore said rising from his seat as well.  
  
His wise eyes twinkled as he and McGonagall left the conference room and apparated back to his office at Hogwarts where the staff was getting ready for yet another magical year at the school.  
  
Evil may be lurking in the shadows, but he was sure that they all would be able to handle whatever came there way. 


End file.
